Overview

Geography aims to ensure that all pupils:

• develop contextual knowledge of the location of globally significant places – both terrestrial and marine – including their defining physical and human characteristics and how these provide a geographical context for understanding the actions of processes
• understand the processes that give rise to key physical and human geographical features of the world, how these are interdependent and how they bring about spatial variation and change over time
• are competent in the geographical skills needed to:
• collect, analyse and communicate with a range of data gathered through experiences of fieldwork that deepen their understanding of geographical processes
• interpret a range of sources of geographical information, including maps, diagrams, globes, aerial photographs and Geographical Information Systems (GIS)
• communicate geographical information in a variety of ways, including through maps, numerical and quantitative skills and writing at length.

Subject content

Each half term students will have a specific topic that they will be studying in class; you can support them by doing extra internet research. Topics include – Map skills, Rivers and Flooding, Energy, Glaciation, and a place study on the Horn of Africa.

To support your child in Geography it is vital that they keep up to date with recent world activities. The best way to do this is to watch the news, documentaries and talk about recent events and to encourage them to read news articles.

Some useful sites are:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/subjects/zrw76sg – Geographical skills will be important throughout all topics studied. You can support your son with these using the resources on this website: https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/mapzone/

In addition, each student will have to complete a piece of homework every week which is set on ‘Show my homework’. Homework is in three parts, revision, practice, and test. Homework will be assessed using a weekly knowledge test in class.

We use the quizzing platform Seneca for some topics to support learning. https://senecalearning.com/en-GB/

How it will be assessed

Assessment isn’t limited to a narrow range of evidence and is based upon a range of activities, outcomes and contexts. These could include assessing the learning as it’s happening through observation, discussion or focused questioning; involving pupils in the process through peer or self-assessment; as well as an end-of-unit assessment every half-term. These assessments will mirror the style of a GCSE exam paper.

About the Course

Component 1: The Physical Environment

• Topic 1: The changing landscapes of the UK – including optional sub-topics from which students choose two from three, 1A: Coastal landscapes and processes, 1B: River landscapes and processes and 1C: Glaciated upland landscapes and processes.
• Topic 2: Weather hazards and climate change
• Topic 3: Ecosystems, biodiversity and management

Component 2: The Human Environment

• Topic 4: Changing cities
• Topic 5: Global development
• Topic 6: Resource management – including optional sub-topics from which students choose one from two, 6A: Energy resource management and 6B: Water resource management

Component 3: Geographical Investigations: Fieldwork and UK Challenges

• Topic 7: Geographical investigations − fieldwork
• Topic 8: Geographical investigations − UK challenges

What will I learn to do?

• Actively engage in the process of geography to develop as effective and independent learners and as critical and reflective thinkers with enquiring minds.
• Develop their knowledge and understanding of geographical concepts and appreciate the relevance of these concepts to our changing world.
• Develop a framework of spatial awareness in which to appreciate the importance of the location of places and environments from local to global.
• Appreciate the differences and similarities between people’s views of the world, its environments, societies and cultures.
• Understand the significance of values and attitudes to the development and resolution of issues.
• Develop their responsibilities as global citizens and recognise how they can contribute to a future that is sustainable and inclusive.
• Develop and apply their learning to the real world through fieldwork and other out-of-classroom learning.

What skills do I need?

The specification requires the assessment of the candidate’s ability to:

• Identify, analyse and evaluate relevant geographical questions and issues.
• Establish appropriate sequences of investigation, incorporating geographical skills, including enquiry skills.
• Extract and interpret information from a range of different sources, including field observations; maps (including Ordnance Survey maps of different scales); graphs; drawings; photographs (ground, aerial and satellite imagery); diagrams and tables.
• Describe, analyse and interpret evidence to make decisions, draw and justify conclusions and communicate findings in ways appropriate to the task audience.
• Evaluate methods of collecting, presenting and analysing evidence, and the validity and limitations of evidence and conclusions.

How it will be assessed

• Component 1: The Physical Environment (*Paper 1 code: 1GA0/01) – Written examination: 1 hour and 30 minutes, 37.5% of the qualification, 94 marks
• Component 2: The Human Environment (*Paper 2 code: 1GA0/02) – Written examination: 1 hour and 30 minutes, 37.5% of the qualification, 94 marks
• Component 3: Geographical Investigations: Fieldwork and UK Challenges (*Paper 3 code: 1GA0/03) –
• Written examination: 1 hour and 30 minutes , 25% of the qualification, 64 marks

Exam board

Edexcel

About the course

The specification has been designed to increase the choice offered to teachers and students studying GCE Geography, allowing for specialisation and progression to higher education and employment. There will be natural progression from GCSE to GCE, ensuring that there is development of content. Students will be given the opportunity to develop fieldwork skills and study geographical issues and impacts. The new specification (taught from 2016 onwards) will excite students’ minds, challenge perceptions and stimulate their investigative and analytical skills. Whilst new units have been added to reflect the world today, you’ll see it’s retained much of the topics you enjoy, including hazards and population.

What they will learn

Contemporary geography is a subject which explicitly engages with the relationship of human populations to each other over space and time and their relationship with their physical environment at a variety of scales from the local to the global.
All units specified in AQA GCE Geography offer opportunities for candidates to consider:

• their own roles, values and attitudes in relation to themes and issues being studied
• the roles, values and attitudes of others including decision-makers.

How it will be assessed

Component 1 – Physical Geography

What is assessed?
Section A – Water and carbon cycles

This section of our specification focuses on the major stores of water and carbon at or near the Earth’s surface and the dynamic cyclical relationships associated with them. These are major elements in the natural environment and understanding them is fundamental to many aspects of physical geography.

Section B – Glacial systems and landscapes

This section of our specification focuses on glaciated landscapes. These are dynamic environments in which landscapes continue to develop through contemporary processes but which mainly reflect former climatic conditions associated with the Pleistocene era. The operation and outcomes of fundamental geomorphological processes and their association with distinctive landscapes are readily observable. In common with water and carbon cycles, a systems approach to study is specified.

Section C – Hazards

This section of our specification focuses on the lithosphere and the atmosphere, which intermittently but regularly present natural hazards to human populations, often in dramatic and sometimes catastrophic fashion. By exploring the origin and nature of these hazards and the various ways in which people respond to them, students are able to engage with many dimensions of the relationships between people and the environments they occupy. Study of this section offers the opportunity to exercise and develop observation skills, measurement and geospatial mapping skills, together with data manipulation and statistical skills, including those associated with and arising from fieldwork.

How is it assessed?
Written exam, 2hours 30 mins. 120 marks

40% of A level.

Structured short and extended questions

Component 2 –  Human Geography

What is assessed?

Section A – Global systems and global governance

This section of our specification focuses on globalisation – the economic, political and social changes associated with technological and other driving forces which have been a key feature of global economy and society in recent decades.

Section B – Changing places

This section of our specification focuses on people’s engagement with places, their experience of them and the qualities they ascribe to them, all of which are of fundamental importance in their lives. Students acknowledge this importance and engage with how places are known and experienced, how their character is appreciated, the factors and processes which impact upon places and how they change and develop over time. Through developing this knowledge, students will gain understanding of the way in which their own lives and those of others are affected by continuity and change in the nature of places which are of fundamental importance in their lives.

Section C – Population and the environment

This section of our specification has been designed to explore the relationships between key aspects of physical geography and population numbers, population health and well-being, levels of economic development and the role and impact of the natural environment. Engaging with these themes at different scales fosters opportunities for students to contemplate the reciprocating relationships between the physical environment and human populations and the relationships between people in their local, national and international communities.

How is it assessed?

Written exam, 2hours 30 mins. 120 marks

40% of A level.

Structured short and extended questions

Component 3 – Geography fieldwork investigation

What is assessed?
Students complete an individual investigation which must include data collected in the field. The individual investigation must be based on a question or issue defined and developed by the student relating to any part of the specification content.

All students are required to undertake fieldwork in relation to processes in both physical and human geography. Students must undertake four days of fieldwork during their A-level course. Fieldwork can be completed in a number of ways: locally or further afield, on full days or on part days. Schools and colleges will be required to confirm that all A-level geography students have been given an opportunity to fulfil this requirement.

How is it assessed?
3,000–4,000 words

60 marks

20% of A-level

marked by teachers

moderated by AQA

Exam board

AQA